On Wed, 31 Jul 2002, Doc Shipley wrote:
> On Wed, 31 Jul 2002, Sellam Ismail wrote:
>
> > On Wed, 31 Jul 2002, Fred Cisin (XenoSoft) wrote:
> >
> > > The physical dimensions of the punched cards were chosen to match dollar
> > > bills, so that the processing hardware could make use of existing
> > > subassemblies. I don't know why that particular hole to hole spacing was
> > > chosen, but that combined with the size of the cards resulted in 80
> > > column.
> >
> > Are you sure? A punch card is a bit larger than a dollar bill.
>
> I'm looking at an E-series bill (pre-'60) and although I haven't seen
> a punchcard in a while, I think they're darn close.
Ah, the thought hadn't even crossed my mind that bills have shrunk in size
since the punch card was invented. I'm a product of the 1970s :)
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
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Received on Wed Jul 31 2002 - 13:57:00 BST